For the Ukrainian family killed by Russian mortar on a bridge in Irpin

Their bodies, commas—

Crossing the sentence of war,

Curved toward each other,

As though the asphalt

Were a Sunday morning bed—

Daughter, son, mother, the man

We took for a father,

A volunteer of Mercy

Gathered among headlines.

Even the little dog’s mad barks

The exclamation a domestic note—

Among the mortar rounds,

And the man’s fading pulse

War’s antiphon, canticle of kin.

Jasmine Marshall Armstrong is a writing instructor, poet, and nonfiction writer living in California's Central Valley. She is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fresno State University.